Farm Workers Threaten to Boycott Elections

Women from South Africa's three Cape provinces have marched to parliament in Cape Town to denounce the country's "slow and unbalanced" land redistribution programme.

The protesters say that if they are not given greater access to land, they will not vote in the upcoming general elections on 22 April 2009. They waved placards criticising Minister of Land Affairs Lulu Xingwana, for failing them.

"We want what belongs to us, we are fighting for land for the sake of our children’s future, so no land no vote," said Maria Pietersen, a woman from the Northern Cape. Pietersen’s efforts to get land have been frustrated by the local government.

The protest was the culmination of a two-day conference convened by the Surplus People Project (SPP), a NGO that advocates for agrarian reform in the country.

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